By the summer of 1989, a series of problems were threatening China’s stability. Soaring inflation was undermining the economy at home while the violent suppression of Tiananmen Square demonstrations had left it largely a pariah state abroad. Yet within a few years the nation rebounded – beginning two decades of high economic growth, membership in the largest trading club in the world and international acceptance on the global stage.
That transition came thanks in no small part to an underestimated, Soviet-trained electrical engineer – former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who died on Nov. 30, 2022, at the age of 96.
